


The Method of Moments

by Poetry



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Amnesia, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How to cure retrograde amnesia in four simple steps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Method of Moments

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Метод моментов](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10443564) by [TheLadyRo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyRo/pseuds/TheLadyRo)



> Inspired by the eponymous statistical method. BR'd par excellence by [](http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/profile)[**kaffyr. **](http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/)

**Step 1: Earn the patient's trust.**

The first thing she knew was light.

Then a voice murmured out of the bright fog. She tried to understand what the voice meant, and why it was speaking to her, but she found she couldn't remember anything at all.

There was a dark shape in the hazy light, which resolved into an aquiline face with eyes bright as searchlights (though she had only the vaguest notion what a searchlight was.) He was speaking, but the words didn't make sense. It occurred to her that she should be scared, but she couldn't muster the energy for fear.

Beside her, something was radiating warmth. She turned her head so her cheek rested on the soft surface where she lay. Lying next to her was a man, sweet and appealing to the eye as candy (though the meaning of candy evaded her.) She found herself moving closer to him; his warmth was comforting, especially compared to the man standing above them, so unnerving and alien.

The speaker took their hands in each of his. She shivered a little at the chill of his skin, but couldn't think of anything to do but close her eyes and listen to his gruff voice. She still couldn't understand, but her breathing slowed to the cadence of his words.

Perhaps what he was saying didn't matter. After all, he was the one who came to her out of the fog.

She opened her eyes and smiled.

**Step 2: Initiate telepathic contact.**

It hurt to see them like this, peering up at him like children.

Part of him wanted to tell them not to trust him, that they'd be better off trusting somebody else, anyone in the universe but him. Another part of him wished they could stay like this forever, that he could join them in oblivion and peace.

The Doctor sighed. The psychotoxin doses they'd gotten were great enough to prevent their ability to form new memories. He had to hurry, or soon he'd have to earn their trust all over again. For them, there was no past and no future, only an endless stream of Now.

Come to think of it, amnesiacs had a better grasp of the nature of Time than most.

"Just close your eyes and relax," said the Doctor. It was strange to talk just for the sake of talking, but the sound of his voice seemed to soothe them. Their eyes were so wide, their breathing so easy…

He reached out to touch their temples.

**Step 3: Draw out memories of emotional significance to the patient to trigger maximum recall.**

The Doctor sank into Jack and Rose's minds as if through cool water; without their natural mental shielding, they could hold nothing back. He resisted the urge to dive as deep as he could into the waters, and floated back to the surface.

As his mind sailed on, trailing ripples in its wake, the waters around him tinted to pink and gold. He glided to a halt and coaxed the moments from the depths of her brain.

_In the village square, from the rooftops, and down the thoroughfares came thousands of voices joined in one song. Rose didn't know the words, but she added her voice to the chorus, following the melody as best she could. The beauty of it gave her the good kind of gooseflesh._

_When the song ended, Rose turned the Doctor. "What were they singing about?"_

_"It's the year 3168, and there hasn't been a war anywhere on planet Earth for 100 years."_

_In her travels, Rose had met lifeforms of every description, some humble, others with inconceivable power, but in that moment, she wouldn't have traded being human for anything in the universe._

Far beneath, a whirlpool began to swirl, and the pink and gold waters began to take shape.

_Rose shivered as she looked out over Woman Wept, forever trapped in a moment of savage beauty and rage. The landscape was cold and angular, the frozen waves glittering like steel in the starlight. "It looks so dead," she said. "Did anything survive?"_

_"According to biologists of this time, no," said the Doctor. "But I think otherwise." He took her by the hand and walked out on the ice. From his pocket, he took out a pair of tinted glasses. "Look."_

_She put on the glasses, and suddenly, the ocean was aglow. Below her feet, under the ice, swam a million billion tiny luminescent fish. The frozen sea looked like a giant jar of fireflies. Rose realized she'd forgotten to breathe, and gasped in the cold air. She had seen so much destruction in her travels that she sometimes wondered if there was any end to it. As life kindled anew beneath the ice, so did her hope._

A current pulled the Doctor's mind along to where the waters were dappled in every shade of blue. He stirred the surface with a slight ripple, and the moments bubbled up from the deep.

_The Doctor finished his dance with Rose, and Jack took his turn as the music switched to "Chattanooga Choo Choo," whirling Rose around with the sheer exhilaration of being alive. After several more dances, though, he felt his energy flagging. Saving the world and cheating death was an exhausting affair._

_ "I'm going to have to call it quits for tonight," Jack declared, "though usually I have a lot more endurance." His grin turned into a splitting yawn. He took off his greatcoat, folded it into a neat square, and set it on the floor where the metal grating ended and the surface became smooth. Then he lay down on the floor, his head resting on the folded coat._

_"What are you doing, Jack?" he heard Rose say._

_Jack looked up at her, nonplussed. "Going to sleep."_

_"Don't be ridiculous," said the Doctor. "Get up. Behind the console, make a right, then two lefts. Your bedroom'll be fifty meters down the corridor."_

_"There's no need to make up a room for me," Jack protested. "I don't want to be any more trouble. I've slept in far worse."_

_"No one on this ship gets left out in the cold," the Doctor said. Until that moment, Jack would have said that the ship wasn't cold at all, but suddenly, he felt just that much warmer._

Mighty waves coursed across the waters, and the Doctor knew his work was almost done.

_They had been working to evacuate the city for what felt like days. The task of getting all four million residents out of danger before the solar flares hit seemed impossible to Jack at first, but Rose's stubborn will and the Doctor's clever plans made him believe. _

_The Doctor's Time Lord physiology and Jack's Time Agency genetic modifications enabled them to work without pause, but after 12 hours, Rose had collapsed into a deep sleep. Soon, the Doctor and Jack found themselves guarding Rose from the frenzied crowds and the ever-increasing solar radiation instead of helping to evacuate. _

_One of the solar flare trackers started beeping ominously. The Doctor glanced at it, then turned to Jack. He took something from his pocket. "Take her back to the TARDIS," he said, dropping a key in his hand. "Keep her safe."_

_Jack couldn't have been more honored if he'd been trusted with the key to time itself._

It was almost more than the Doctor could bear to finally tear his mind away.

**Step 4: Be sure that the patient gets plenty of bed rest; psychic restoration is a draining process.**

Jack awoke in a room in the TARDIS he didn't recognize. The walls were completely blank, and the background hum of the TARDIS was so quiet as to be almost subliminal. Something in the air made him want to just relax, and not worry about questions like What is this place? and How did I get here? and Where are…

Oh. He seemed to be on a bed. Next to Rose.

"I know what you're thinking," said the Doctor, who was leaning against a door frame that Jack could have sworn wasn't there a moment ago, "and it's not what it looks like."

"So you were in the bed too?" teased Jack, returning the Doctor's light tone.

"You were poisoned with psychotoxin back on Santraginus V. I had to go into your minds to fix you." The Doctor's face turned grave and drawn with old guilt. "Without your permission. I'm sorry."

"Hey, no worries, Doc. You know we would have let you." The corner of Jack's mouth quirked into a half-smile as he gestured at his head and Rose's. "So, what was it like in there?"

Rose smiled a little in her sleep; Jack looked up at the Doctor without judgment. They reminded him of children once more. He could turn their brains inside out, hold their every thought in the palm of his hand, yet he knew they would invite him into the sanctuary of their minds with no hesitation.

_It was like sleeping out in the cold in front of someone's home and getting invited in. It was like the look in my granddaughter's eyes when I held her in my arms. It was as if, for one moment, I wasn't broken._ "It was bigger on the inside," he said.


End file.
